September 2016 Cover Artist: Alexander Cohen

This month Poetry magazine got a little help from our friends at ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions). Development Director Dana Bassett, formerly of Poetry Foundation, sent us work by ACRE artists, per request, and we fell in love with Alexander Cohen’s Ashley Teamer immediately. I wrote to Cohen for more about Teamer herself (you can see her incredible work here), and his work in general. He says:

Ashley Teamer is a queen. A gentle conscious soul. Polite. Engaged. Interested. I met Ashley in 2014 at Skowhegan. We collaborated once on a mural. It was great. This portrait of Ashley is actually my first sitter! I made it in 2015 at another residency me and Ashley attended in Wisconsin called ACRE. I asked Ashley to sit for me. Her energy quickly put me at ease and I was able to depict her. I was able engage with her physicality as well as her aura. I was able to concentrate on my drawing, engage in conversation, and continue excavating her on paper through line color and shape.

And what about Alex? He says:

Alex Bradley Cohen. Lost youth turned old soul. Makes psychological pictorial embodiments of the human soul. Mind Body Spirit. Alex isn’t interested in replicating his sitter's physical image but rather their aura. He doesn’t really care what you look like, he is interested in what you beez like. Alex’s collection of sitters investigate other aspects of being human; alive eccentric energy, eclectic energy, combining color shape and force to construct humans. These are one’s thoughts and ideas. Physicality is lamen to Alex’s eye, he responds to energy and intention. His sitters are reflections, they have limbs, eyes, body parts, their shapes reflect human things, but what they get at is the energy and force of the natural existence. Alex is into the people who come in and out of his life. They are his muses. Is this how God wanted us to be seen? Red eye blue nose pink ear green lips orange fingers purple legs maroon feet? How many shades of green is in one tree? They don't make black or white colored pencils to enable me to make these portraits. These figures are colorful. Unique. Individual. Wholesome. I use the whole box of pencils.

Here are a few more of Cohen's sitters. If you get on his Instagram, you'll be treated to text about them, too!